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PlayStation Conference Summary & Reactions - E3 2016

A full summary of the PlayStation E3 Conference, complete with trailers and my reactions throughout. Read on to find out what I thought!

PlayStation kicked off their conference with the announcement of a brand new God Of War, which notably isn't called God Of War 4, most probably because it's now steeped in Norse mythology. God Of War is before my time within the PlayStation nation, and I've heard mixed things about it before this, but, even so, I was quite impressed and am fairly excited. The trailer was a very interesting look at the game, and I'm not sure how indicative of the end product it'll be: whether you will be playing as Kratos again (assuming the older guy is Kratos) or, instead, as his son (which could, equally, be young-Kratos).

We then saw Sony Bend's new game. It isn't called Dead Don't Ride as was previously rumoured, but, instead, Days Gone and looks awesome. It also capped off the conference, so I'll talk properly about it then.

The Last Guardian is finally coming out on October 25th. This announcement was paired with a new look at the game, and a second Trico-like-creature. While my excitement for this game is waning, this trailer looked cool and I still really want to play it, if only to see what Team Ico have been working on for nearly 10 years.

We then saw a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn, in the form of a lengthy gameplay demo. Honestly, at this point, I think I've seen enough to know I'm going to love this game, and I don't want any more; I imagine that was the original intention before it was pushed to early next year. My only small worry is that the combat will become repetitive, primarily due to the fact that everything we've seen so far has looked remarkably similar

Remember Detroit? Well, it got a new trailer showing loads of a dialogue options for one scene. I honestly didn't love this trailer, and I don't know what all the fuss is about with it. Sure, I liked how they showed it, but the actual content just didn't do it for me.

We then began the more VR-oriented portion of the conference, starting with Resident Evil VII (which I believe is "colon, Biohazard", which is interestingly the name of the game in Japan). This looked absolutely awesome. It'll be fully playable on PS VR as well a consoles, giving the platform its first full game, and one that looks really incredible, with huge PT vibes coming from it every step of the way. I'm really interested to see how it plays on PS4 as opposed to the VR version, and whether everything is as effective.

There are to be 50 games for VR by the end of this year, and it's coming out on October 13th. Along with that we saw Farpoint - the first full-looking game that is only on PS VR - and a Star Wars Battlefront VR experience, where you control an X-Wing, which looks really awesome. We then got the announcement that Rocksteady are creating a Batman Arkham VR experience for PS VR, which - again - looks very cool, although I'm not entirely sure what it'll entail. IF you're wondering, I believe there is a behind closed doors demo at E3, so maybe check out some of the coverage from the more mainstream outlets to get the details. Rounding out the VR portion, it was announced that Final Fantasy XV will have a VR component, where you can play as Prompto, which I don't get at all, but if you want that, more power to you!

As I wrote for PSX last year, it's still weird to me that Call Of Duty is on PlayStation now - more on that later - but here it is. We got a new trailer for Infinite Warfare and the COD 4 Remaster, which didn't really do it for me, but I'm sure it was great for Call Of Duty fans.

Then, the first real surprise: remasters of Crash Bandicoot 1, 2 and Warped for PS4 and that Crash himself will be coming to Skylanders Imaginators later this year. I've never understood the love for Crash, from the (spoilers) portion in Uncharted 4 and seeing bits and pieces here and there, it looks like it didn't control well and had genuinely bad moments, so why people hold it in such high regard, I don't know. However, I do think the fact its happened is very interesting, and perhaps show a newly found bond between Activision (who own the Crash rights) and Sony - also shown through the fact they now have Call Of Duty.

We then saw a cute new trailer for Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens which is entirely what you'd expect, and is definitely something I'll be playing in a couple of weeks on release.

Then, the second big surprise - Hideo Kojima came out, announcing his new game - Death Stranding - that stars Norman Reedus. This looks insane, but definitely not something that'll be out until 2019 at the earliest. I suggest you watch the trailer to properly get what I'm talking about - it's a weird one, but I'm sure it'll be very cool.

The final announcement - which was something of a surprise, but less so than the other two I mentioned - was the Insomniac is, indeed, working on a Spiderman game. While I'm not a fan of Spiderman at all, I think this looks like it could be really cool; this is definitely one to look out for.

The presser ended somewhat clunkily with a demo of Bend's Days Gone, which feels like it replaced something else that was pulled at the last minute. The demo was very cool, and this is a game I'm certainly sold on already and really anxious to play. Watching all the zombies pile up and flow towards you is genuinely terrifying, and I'm super excited to find out more about the main characters and world they inhabit.

And, that's that. All in all, I think a very solid showing from Sony here, with a noticeably large focus on first party game, after a long period without many of them, or at least ones that have been top quality (bar Uncharted 4, obviously). If you care about Crash Bandicoot, I imagine that was cool - I admit the live orchestra playing the theme did put a large smile on my face. Taking Horizon out of the picture, the standout game for me here was Days Gone, and is something I really want to sink my teeth into more and more as I think about it and how cool that experience and world could be. Kojima being there is obviously huge, and his game, while characteristically off the wall, looks like it has the potential to be incredible. Surprisingly for me, I'm also excited to hear more about Insominiac's Spiderman game, simply because of that awesome little trailer. And I'm also really looking forward to play Resident Evil and Lego Star Wars. A really nice press conference with a good focus on games and expertly emmceed by Shawn Layden: well done Sony!